The River Spree
As expected, Councilor Eisler was very grateful to be rid of his Sturmutant problem but he hadn't known anything about Hilda being 'The Monster' or what the Sturmutant had meant by it. With a modest sum of silver U-Bahn tokens in hand the two of them returned home to the Pariserplatz subway station, eager to just sit down and relax.
Once they arrived back at the station Hans went looking for Paul, interested to hear his thoughts on the Sturmutant situation. He found his friend and second-in-command in the station's lobby, behind the ticket master's counter, looking over some papers. He told Paul what Eisler told him, the activity of the mutants at Solar Express, and what the red-skinned mutant had said to him. Paul digested the info in a series of nods, and when Hans was finished Paul pushed his papers aside and leaned against the counter.
"You might want to pay a visit to the Friedrichsstrasse station, near the Spree. I heard a rumor that they've been having trouble with Sturmutants, too. Apparently there's a mutant camp in the Spreebogenpark, right by the abandoned Bundestag U-Bahn station. Friedrichsstrasse is the closest occupied station, so if the Sturmers have been harassing the stations then the folks at Friedrichsstrasse would know," Paul said.
Hans rubbed his chin and thought about it for a moment. Sturmutants had been a fact of life in the Deutsches Ödland for years, but were easy to avoid. They were violent and aggressive, sure, but tended to keep to themselves. If they were becoming more active then they'd be a serious threat, especially if they were looking for something. Or someone.
"Hilda and I will go, then. I need you to stay here and keep Pariserplatz safe, as well as to warn the other stations about increased Sturmutant activity. We'll go to Friedrichsstrasse station and find out just what exactly is going on," Hans said.
"How long will that take?" Paul asked.
"As long as it takes. I don't expect it to take any longer than a few weeks, though. We'll be back as soon as we can," Hans said, and Paul nodded.
"Be safe then, friend. Both of you."
Friedrichsstrasse station was to the North, by the banks of the River Spree. To get there from the Pariserplatz station Hans and Hilda had to take the handcar east, towards the DHM station, and stop at a fork; right to DHM, left to Friedrichsstrasse. Before The Bomb came, a U-Bahn car operator could switch the tracks remotely, depending on which route he needed to take. Today it required stopping the handcar and switching the track by hand, a process that thankfully only took a few minutes.
The Friedrichsstrasse station itself was one of the largest in Berlin, built beneath a rail terminal. As such the station was home to close to a hundred people, with market stalls, bars, and diners spread across three platforms. Hans and Hilda disembarked the motorcar and stepped onto the center platform, which bore the staircase that would take one to the surface.
Halfway up said staircase was a mezzanine, the ticket booths still present. Built across the mezzanine were apartments and an inn, mostly vacant. Hans stopped by the inn to ask where the station's councilor was, and then he and Hilda proceeded up the stairs to the surface. They emerged in a concourse shopping center, looted long ago, the former shops and storefronts converted to rather nice apartments for the station's councilor as well as the guards. The two of them found the councilor where the innkeeper said she'd be, sitting at the counter of a former coffee shop, converted into her office.
She looked up as they approached, saw who it was, and stopped what she was doing. "Herr Eckhart, Hilda, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? The DKs, I'm guessing."
"Councilor Stuckart, hello. Not at all, actually. We're here about something else. We've just come back from the station at Potsdamerplatz, which has been having trouble with Sturmutants lately. Councilor Eisler told us they've been harassing all the stations. Paul said you might be having trouble with them, too" Hans said, and Stuckart nodded.
"They haven't been bothering ours, actually, since I'm pretty sure they don't even know there's a station here. What few Sturmutants my guards have seen have ignored us or have been driven off easily, which I find funny, because one of their camps isn't far from here," Stuckart explained.
"The one at Spreebogenpark?" Hans asked.
"Yes, that's right," Stuckart said. "A rather large one, actually. There's a greenhouse there as well as an abandoned U-Bahn station, and the Sturmers have built themselves a nice little fort from which they harass travelers, caravans, communists; basically any human that's dumb enough to approach a Sturmutant camp or doesn't know they're there. If it was just the DKs they were attacking then I wouldn't care, but their presence has shut down a major caravan route."
"A caravan route?" Hilda chimed in.
"Yes. The farmers at the Kanzlergarten, on the other side of the Spree. Before the Sturmers moved in they'd cross at the Molkebrucke, proceed down Otto von Bismarck avenue, and then follow the river to our station. Can't do that now, too dangerous. They're forced to take a much longer route, across Lutherbrucke and along John Foster Dulles avenue to Unter den Linden, which exposes them to raiding from the Deutsches Kommunists. Oh, I'm sorry, I meant 'equitable redistribution,'" Stuckart said with a snicker. "As you can imagine, this has caused them to raise their prices. Are you planning on going to the park?"
Hans nodded. "While at Potsdamerplatz Hilda and I cleared an office building of Sturmutants. Before he died, one of them said they were looking for someone they called The Monster. He seemed to imply it was Hilda. Other mutants in the building also mentioned looking for some people in particular, but we didn't hear names."
"Interesting. Can't imagine why the Sturmers would know who your wife is, or why they'd call her The Monster. Well, if you do go to the park then please be careful. Sturmers are, as you well know, dangerous and aggressive" Stuckart said. "Would you like some of my guards to accompany you?"
"No, that won't be necessary. We're just going to go have a look. I don't know who or what the Sturmutants are after, but I don't much care so long as we can get them to stop attacking the stations" Hans said, and turned to face his wife. "But if it is you they're after, then I'll kill every single one of the fuckers myself."
"Hmph," Hilda said. "Not if I do it first."
After a short rest the two of them got moving from Friedrichsstrasse, using the surface rail bridge to cross the Spree. Rather than following the Reichstagufer and risk running into a Sturmer patrol they chose to cross the Spree and follow Schiffbauerdamm, keeping close to the buildings as they went. Schiffbauerdamm ended at Luisenstrasse, so they were forced to step off the street and follow a pre-War footpath that continued along the bank of the Spree, running alongside a crumbling glass-and-steel building.
Right across the Spree the Reichstag could be seen, her glass dome now just a skeleton of iron. Hans looked at it as they went, wondering if the building would ever be used again. Hans had been just six when The Bomb came, and Germany had fallen long before then.
"What are you looking at?" Hilda said, and Hans stopped. Berlin was relatively quiet today, only sporadic gunfire and explosions near and far. Standing in the open by the Spree wasn't dangerous, necessarily, but still wasn't something he wanted to do for long. The Croakers quietly enjoying their day by the water was reason enough to keep moving.
"The Reichstag, the building with the dome," Hans said, and nodded in the direction of the building. Hilda turned her head to look, the light on the water reflecting in her eyes. "Before The Bomb it was the seat of parliament for Germany, not that there was much democracy around after the 2060's."
"Democracy? Parliament?" she asked.
"Pre-War concepts. Before The Bomb and the Resource Wars there was this notion that every man and woman had the right to decide how their government should be run, and every couple of years there'd be elections for every position from Chancellor all the way down to mayor," Hans said. "After the European Commonwealth collapsed in 2060 that was the end of all that. The United Kingdom closed her ports and tunnels, dissolved the cabinet, and returned to being a monarchy. France dissolved into a revolution; Belgium, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, all mired in wars between each other and themselves. Germany tried to hold on to democracy, not that it mattered much in the end."
"Sounds like Democracy was a waste of time, then."
Hans thought about this for a moment. "Yes, and no. We practice something similar with the U-Bahn stations and the councilors, but in a much more controlled fashion. Before The Bomb there were things like hyperinflation, unemployment, shortages of food and goods, and so on. With so much uncertainty, civil unrest, and violence plaguing Europe it's no surprise to me that most countries went back to what they knew worked: kings and queens. There was no time or desire for things like elections, not when people were dying of starvation and killing each other in the streets."
"Wasn't Germany a democracy for a long time, though?" Hilda asked.
"You'd be surprised what people will give up for food and safety. Democracy is a luxury, practiced by societies that don't want for anything. When it is threatened, people either rally or let it collapse."
"Hmm," was all Hilda had to say. She looked at the Reichstag for a few moments longer, clearly thinking, before she turned back to face Hans. "The United States was a democracy, right? And they caused the nuclear war with China that destroyed our planet. The European Commonwealth was a democracy before the Resource Wars. If democracy was so great, then it should've been able to prevent the wars. It didn't, so it seems to me that democracy was a failure."
"That's fair," Hans said as they got moving again. "Myself, I don't have an opinion. There's no guarantee that the Resource Wars wouldn't have happened if Europe was all monarchies, or dictatorships. All I do know is that we're stuck with the Old World's mess; the how and why is only relevant to learn how to avoid repeating their mistakes."
The two of them continued on their way, following the Spree as it slithered through Germany's heart. They followed the footpath around the bank of the river until they reached the Kronzprinzenbrucke, collapsed into the river and preventing them from crossing. Just as well, Hans thought. We weren't planning to cross anyway.
Across the river the Spreebogenpark could be seen, to the right of the Reichstag. The park, as promised, had been turned into a veritable fortress. The walls looked handmade, watchtowers looming at random spots. As far as Hans could tell there were no spotlights or lamps around, meaning the camp would be utterly dark at night.
"Since the bridge is collapsed here I'm not surprised the Sturmers have been coming down to stations like Freidrichsstrasse and Potsdamerplatz. What's funny is they have to pass Pariserplatz to get to Potsdamer, but they haven't been bothering us," Hans said. "Guess they don't know there's a station at Pariser."
"Idiots," Hilda said.
"Too bad the park's not on an island. We could destroy all their bridges and prevent them from attacking any of the stations" Hans said.
"Isn't there a U-Bahn station by the Reichstag?"
Hans rubbed his chin, thinking. "Hmm. There is. We know the Sturmers haven't found or used it yet, which means one of two things. Either the station was destroyed, or they're too stupid to find it. If it's still intact then we could use it to get closer to the camp, or destroy it so they can't use it."
"You know what I'd prefer, but destroying the station there won't solve the problem. They're using the roads around the Reichstag to get into the city. Even if we block the roads, they'd find a way around them" Hilda said.
"I know what you really want us to do, but the stations just don't have the manpower to eliminate the entire camp. Not without knowing just how many Sturmers are in there," Hans said. "That would be the only way to eliminate the threat, though..."
"I'm glad that you're already coming around to the idea of exterminating that filth."
"Either way, the two of us can't do it alone. Let's go back to Friedrichsstrasse station and let Councilor Stuckart know what we've learned." The two of them got moving again, following the footpath back and retracing their steps to Friedrichsstrasse. They moved briskly, eager to get back to the station.
They hadn't gone more than twenty meters when, from an alley between a building and a park, emerged a squad of Sturmutants. Four grays and one red, hefting a mix of automatic weapons. FG-42s, Sturmgewehrs, even an MG-34. The Sturmers hadn't seen them yet, but they would in seconds.
"Jesus, fuck," Hans breathed, scurrying to the doors of the building, set back in an alcove. He figured that he and Hilda would be able to kill two before being ventilated in a storm of lead. He tried the doors and they moved, but just barely. "Fuck, fuck."
Hilda crouched by the corner of the alcove and took aim with her MP5, sighting in on the enemy. Hans took a glance and saw the squad turn towards them, raising their weapons, and Hilda opened fire. The high sound of the 9mm SMG echoed sharply off the awning of the alcove, hammering Hans' ears.
The Sturmutants returned fire, the thundering bark of their 8mm's drowning out Hilda's MP5 and ripping the walls around the alcove apart in a shower of stone dust and copper shards. Hans rammed the door once, twice, and it opened. He pulled Hilda inside by the waistband of her pants, shoving the door closed and locking it with a plank of wood between the handles.
The shadow of a Sturmer appeared behind the fogged glass door, and it kicked the door. "EMERGE, HUMANS!" the Sturmutant shouted. "Face the justice of Her Majesty!"
Hilda replied by shooting through the door, tearing into the Sturmer. It staggered back around the wall, wounded. Hans took in the room they'd entered at a glance; a desk opposite the door, a few chairs, a collapsed stairway. They were trapped inside. The wall to the right of the desk was host to large windows, stretching from floor to ceiling. Hans walked up to one and peeked outside, checking for the Sturmers. As far as he could tell, they'd retreated back the way they'd come.
"Christ's sake, you damn near yanked my pants off, Hans," Hilda said, and he looked over his shoulder and saw her adjusting her waistband. "Time and place, you know?"
Hans ignored her. "We have to get out of here. There's a building across the street," he said, and climbed out one of the windows. Hilda quickly followed, reloading as she did. They crouched by the wall, watching the street. To the left was the destroyed bridge leading to the Spreebogenpark, to the right an intersection, an elevated railway stretching across it.
*Crash!*
Hans heard the sound of shattering glass in the room they'd just left and looked over his shoulder. The room was clear, which meant...
"RUN!"
The two of them pushed away from the wall and booked it straight for the building across the street, halfway there when the grenade detonated behind them. The street was shrouded in a cloud of dust, smoke, and debris as glass and bits of shrapnel were ejected across it, clattering across the street. Hans felt something cut his left arm but ignored it, focused only on the building ahead of them. There was a utility door, between two shuttered basement windows, that opened readily. They rushed inside, slamming the door behind them, the daylight swallowed by sudden darkness.